I don’t know if you have seen this story yet but it’s heart­warm­ing to say the least… Ron Lynch is a mail­man in Sandy, Utah and was doing his deliv­er­ies like any other day when he noticed 12 yr old Matthew Flo­res going through a bin of “junk mail”. The boy told Lynch he was

Dear Mike & Liza, My fiance’ and I are sup­posed to get mar­ried in Sep­tem­ber and move into his house together. But last week, with­out talk­ing to me about it, he bought a fer­ret. He calls it his “cat-snake” and it runs all over the house. I do NOT want to live in a

How do you reward your chil­dren? A new study shows that chil­dren as young as 4, know when the reward is lame. Preschool­ers aren’t that much inter­ested in stick­ers or prizes that don’t live up to their stan­dards, no mat­ter how hard they worked for it. How do you reward your young chil­dren? Stickers…small toys…treats?

Reaching Your Running Goals

If you’re think­ing about tak­ing up run­ning, or even if you’ve been doing it for a while, it’s a safe bet that you have some goals in mind that you’d like to reach. Achiev­ing a goal is a great way to build con­fi­dence, and it’s also a good way to track your progress. If you’re work­ing toward accom­plish­ing a run­ning goal, here are a few tips for get­ting the job done.

Set the right goal – You don’t want to over­whelm your­self, so make sure you start small and set S.M.A.R.T. goals for your­self. That’s S-specific, M-measurable, A-attainable, R-relevant, T-timely. As you accom­plish smaller goals, you can expand your scope and work toward big­ger goals.

Stay pos­i­tive – Chas­ing your run­ning goal prob­a­bly isn’t going to go your way all the time. You can’t get down on your­self when you have a bad run, or even a bad string of runs. Dis­pel doubt as soon as it enters your mind. If things aren’t going well, act like they are going well until they actu­ally are going well. Stay­ing pos­i­tive will help to keep you motivated.

Eat right – What you put into your body will affect the per­for­mance you get out of it. So, eat healthy, avoid sweets, soda, and greasy food. Sounds sim­ple, right?

Get some peeps – Find­ing run­ning bud­dies is a good way to keep your­self involved and excited about chas­ing your goal. Good run­ning friends will inspire you to keep after your goal and hold you account­able if you fall off the track. And you may even develop a bit of com­pe­ti­tion to moti­vate you to keep running.

Keep the “why” in mind – Why are you try­ing to hit your run­ning goal? To lose weight? To get healthy? To be an exam­ple to your kids? What­ever the rea­son, keep that rea­son in mind to remind you why what you’re doing is important.

Write it down – It may sound sim­ple, but jot­ting down your goal on paper is actu­ally a pretty pow­er­ful tool for real­iz­ing your goal. See­ing your goal in writ­ing makes it real. Your may even want to write your goal some­where you can see it while you’re run­ning. Across your knuck­les, for exam­ple. That will serve as a con­stant reminder of what you’re try­ing to do.